a blog by Jennifer Tatroe

stress

The first time I won NaNoWriMo, my now-teenage son was only eight months old, and we were in the midst of a month-long stint in Cincinnati for a project my husband was working on. In a way, it was the perfect set-up for a month of intense writing. We spent that November in a residence hotel. I only had one small room to keep picked up, the galley kitchen wasn’t going to be supporting any gourmet meals, my son still took two naps a day, and I didn’t know anyone in the city to act as a distraction. There was nothing to do but sit in my tiny, dark hotel room, and write.

The last time I won NaNoWriMo, my son was eight years old. I’d just opened my Etsy shop, and I didn’t have enough of a presence yet to have the sort of frenetic, crazy, wonderful holiday season I’ve come to expect in more recent years. We lived in Washington then, and I spent countless hours in the Starbucks next to the Tukwila Barnes and Noble, writing away with the fabulous northern Seattle wrimo crew. It was a completely different experience from that first, quiet NaNo, but just as wonderful in its own way.

Those nine years of writing dangerously, and the subsequent years, when Palimpsestic began to explode for the holiday season, taught me a lot about how to survive and thrive through a hectic November. Over the next month, I’ll be sharing the strategies I’ve learned over the course of my nine NaNoWriMo wins, and my four holiday seasons spent running an online shop. I may not be able to keep November from being stressful, but maybe I can help nudge it slightly more towards amazing. Because whether you’re spending your November writing a novel, working retail, or just planning for holiday celebrations, it really can be the most amazing month of the year.